A study in which researchers significantly decreased the subjects’ caloric intake (much like many commercial diets today) found that after 5 years, 83% showed more weight gained than originally lost! In fact, everything within that article paints a pretty gloomy picture for those who love their fad diets.
Bex is the owner & editor of Tit-Bits who has been writing since she was in nappies (she was in nappies until she was 18).
The human body and its checks and balances are meant to keep us at just the right weight and body fat. I hope this journey to ancestral homeostasis was enlightening or will at least save you or someone you know from falling into the traditional approach to fat loss. So, with a huge amount of possible fad diets on the market today how do you know which one is right for you? Simple, it is that get rich quick mindset that has been engrained into us since the beginning of the internet. Once the fad diet is over most people go back to their old eating habits, which is one of the worst things you can do to your body.
That means that the majority of the people in the study gained back more weight than they lost. Okay, so you will get the odd miracle story who has managed to stick at it for years and is now a spokesperson for the company getting paid a fortune to look good, but they appear once in a blue moon.
The more calories it consumes the more weight it puts on (simply put) and the more calories it burns the less weight it puts on (okay, I really am simplifying).
Okay, so it’s not going to work in record time but it is unhealthy to lose weight super quick anyway.
She has a passion for anything and everything; in particular moaning about the current injustices in the world, My Little Pony, thrash death metal and long walks on the beach.
Our fat cells, and to a smaller extent the cells in the lining of the stomach, secrete a hormone called leptin. Increased body fat increases the leptin signal to the hypothalamus and to this it increases metabolism via the thyroid, and decreases hormonal signals of hunger. Much like the body becomes resistant to insulin in Type 2 Diabetes, it also becomes leptin resistant. First it's because the modern conception of diet is incorrect, and means nothing more than a way of eating or a lifestyle.
Sporting a decreased metabolism, increased hunger for bad food options, increased circulating stress hormones, and decreased muscle mass.

It got used to living off orange peel and now you’re feeding it chocolate and crisps and pizza.
You need to make a lifestyle change and that starts by throwing away all your fad diet books. Although our caveman needs to have enough body fat to survive the next famine, his body also realizes he needs to be lean enough to run away from the occasional tiger. This is due to many things such as a sedentary lifestyle, over consumption of processed carbohydrates, elevated triglycerides, chronic stress, and toxicity just to name a few. Essentially the same physiological mechanism that kept our caveman the right body fat still exists in our bodies today. While maintaining aerobic fitness is important, one can do so by maintaining a progressive resistance-training program that includes shorter more relatively intense bouts of activity.
Now old secondary school biology classes are fresh in your mind, let’s talk about how you can lose weight. If we look at how our caveman and women ancestors lived and subsisted, and how our physiology seeks homeostasis, it is easy to see how diets are often unsuccessful in the long run.
When we become lean our fat is lower and subsequently less leptin is produced and sent to the brain, and more specifically the hypothalamus. When we begin to go into famine, which in modern day is merely caloric restriction through decreasing food consumption, our bodies’ natural mechanisms sense this over time and decrease metabolism. The truth is that it's not about a number, it's not about weight loss, it's about fat loss. This maintains muscle mass and decreases the chronic stress response brought about by long duration steady state aerobic sessions.
We’re always looking for quicker ways we can achieve something, with as little hard work as possible.
When this happens the hypothalamus decreases thyroid activity, down regulating our metabolism and also sends out hormones such as ghrelin and neuropeptide Y (NPY), which make us hungry.
Essentially the hypothalamus does not receive the signal despite the over abundance of fat and subsequently leptin. To compound this dieters try to create a caloric deficit by increasing activity, and in many cases this takes the form of long duration aerobic activity, although this may not always be the case. In addition to this a grocery list that includes plenty of sources of protein, fruits, vegetables, and some nuts, seeds, and healthy oils, while staying away from more processed foods found in boxes and bags will go a long way.
Let me give you my reasoning behind why they don’t work, backed up with some science.

Think about it, if we go back to our caveman, it makes sense to decrease his metabolism in famine, and increase his hunger to seek his next meal. Luckily reversing leptin resistance can be accomplished by paying attention to the aforementioned lifestyle factors. Now think about it, if our caveman were in famine would he go for a jog to expend energy, or conserve it? Successful and maintained fat loss is achieved slower and through making changes in lifestyle to increasing physical activity, making better food choices, decreasing stress, and being practical about what can be achieved. And finally, use the trusty SMART goal model to establish specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-oriented goals.
But I’m going to share it with you today, because I feel it is about the time the world knows. Maintaining regular physical activity, increasing whole food consumption in contrast to processed foods, dealing with stress, decreasing alcohol consumption, and investigating and rectifying possible sources of toxicity will go a long way in dealing with leptin resistance. To this our body has to release cortisol, a stress hormone that helps liberate fat, glucose, and protein from muscle to provide us with energy.
Getting social support from friends and family, as well as accountability from a fitness professional will also better your chances of taking of the fat for good.
The only bad thing is that this hormone also likes to deposit fat in the abdominal region when elevated chronically! In fact, the only weight loss stories come from those who used the ketones with a balanced diet and exercise.
While this is all happening our body is in a net protein loss, which leads to loss of muscle. To pile it on our body also begins to send out this hunger signals ghrelin and NPY as it senses famine, and also because our stress hormones do a great job at stimulating NPY release. NPY is an interesting hormone because it makes us crave sweet things, not so bad for our caveman who would find some berries, but now those berries have turned into a snickers bar from the closest vending machine.